China fuels surge in global IP growth
A rapid increase in IP filings in China and by its citizens is driving global IP growth, a report has shown.
The report, published on December 9 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), shows that Chinese residents filed and its IP office handled the most patents, utility models, industrial designs and trademarks.
It is the first time that China has topped both of those measures.
The 2013 World Intellectual Property Indicators reveals that global patent filings grew by 9.2 percent last year. Utility model (UM), industrial design and trademark filings were up 23.4 percent, 17 percent and 6 percent respectively.
WIPO director general Francis Gurry said that while economic recovery since the 2009 financial crisis has been uneven and has failed to bring down unacceptably high levels of unemployment, “IP filings have increased at a faster rate than before the crisis”.
With about 2.35 million patents filed, the global growth in patents was the fastest in 18 years. Following a 3.9 percent decrease in 2009, filings began increasing in 2010 (7.6 percent) before rising again in 2011 (8.1 percent) and jumping further in 2012 (9.2 percent).
China was heavily responsible for these figures. For the first time, Chinese residents filed the most patents (560,681) worldwide, while the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO) handled 652,777 applications, making it the largest office for the second year running.
Turning to trademarks, the report breaks the figures down into the number of classes specified in applications (class counts). In 2012 there were 6.58 million class counts, representing a 6 percent increase from 2011.
Chinese residents filed about 1.58 million class counts, while SIPO received 16.5 percent more than last year, though Turkey (24.1 percent) showed the strongest growth of any IP office. Some IP offices in the European Union, for example Italy (8.3 percent) and Germany (6.4 percent), recorded fewer class counts than in 2011.
The growth (17 percent) in industrial designs last year was the highest since design counts records became available in 2004; about 1.22 million designs were filed worldwide. The Russian Federation’s IP office led the way, with a 29.5 percent growth in designs, followed by SIPO, with 26.1 percent.
While the growth in UMs (23.4 percent) was high, it fell short of the previous year’s rate of 34.7 percent. SIPO saw a 26.4 percent rise in UM applications.
SIPO was the only office to record double digit growth across all four IP areas.
Ralph Loren, partner at Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP, said the rise in patent and trademark filings in China is “the headline for everyone”, though he noted that a majority of those applications came from local residents.
“China is filing heavily in China, but the question is why? Is it to keep other people out? Is it to populate other patent offices? Is it companies doing business in China and their Chinese partners filing? I don’t think we know.
“Chinese patent law could be behind it,” Loren continued, as amendments to the country’s patent legislation in 2008 required Chinese residents seeking to file patents abroad to file first in China. “It does skew the statistics.”
China has often been criticised in the West for having a poor record of combating IP infringement, but recent changes in the country’s trademark legislation are going some way to addressing the perceived problems
Loren said: “The total numbers are very high, which is interesting because it looks like China is actually trying to protect IP – their own first – and they’re looking like the rest of the world.
“Overall, the report is good news ... Financially, as money comes back in, people start filing, and as money goes out, people start suing.”
The report is available here.
